Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[TCT~Phantom]

I think it would be virtually impossible to implement a Kazuya ZTD ban.

Losing his side-B would hurt though. Maybe give him Bouncing FIsh or Flip Jump? Losing his counter for a better recovery would be a better trade than losing his side-B. Maybe give him Mach Tornado as well.

Pretty much yeah. It took the Melee community years to even ban Wobbling, with so much discourse on it. Banning the Kazuya ZTD would be rough, like what would you ban the number of Electrics a Kazuya could land in one combo? I am gonna ignore even the slippery slope part of the argument, but it would just be hard to implement. It would not also be a perfect solution, Kazuya would have some ZTDs available but it would be notably rarer.

Even if this is a bit of a pipe dream, I would prefer something like this to an outright ban of Kazuya. It falls more in line with previous precedent as well. Stuff like the ledge grab limits and Wobbling in Melee are easier for us to use as precedent than just banning a character because they make people mald. I personally think any calls for bans whatsoever are extremely hasty and should be avoided. I wish the well on ban discourse was not poisoned just because Light did not learn the Steve mu at that level before the Gimmvitational.

 

[williamsga555]

One important distinction between wobbling and Kazuya's ZTD is the level of player involvement. In wobbling, the player getting wobbled may as well set their controller down -there is literally nothing they can do to influence whether the wobble gets dropped once it starts.

Brawl banning MK's Infinite Dimensional Cape was a more profound version of this same sort of issue -once started, the other player could not do a damn thing to make it stop. (For the record, I don't necessarily think wobbling should have been banned, but IDC absolutely needed to be)

Kazuya's ZTDs, on the other hand, have a lot of DI sway for the defender. Yes, if the Kazuya player reads/reacts to their DI, it's a true string, but the impacted player has some input at least. I think that's a huge deal, personally, and think that trying to ban it would be pretty unfortunate.

 

[Frihetsanka]

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So this is interesting. Are people really so sensitive that having one Steve and one Kazuya in top 8 every week is enough to consider a ban? They don't even place top 3 consistently. I think the ban talk and overall negativity is doing more damage than the characters are. Smash has always had some design issues with characters, and while patch culture means complaining about characters sometimes works and gets that character nerfed, once patches have stopped coming it's mostly hurts the scene. Occasionally you'd hear Melee players talking about banning Jigglypuff but that was a very small minority (although I think the Steve/Kazuya ban talk is also a small minority, I haven't heard a single person in my country say they want those characters banned, other than as a joke).

Oh, and Melee players had to deal with Fox for quite some time, yet they didn't try to get him banned, they just dealt with it. Even Smash Bayonetta, as broken as she was, only made up for, what, 10-15% of the playerbase? And Steve is significantly less than that, even Steve + Kazuya (and Kazuya isn't even commonly considered #2) are probably less than Bayonetta, and those three together are probably used less than Brawl Meta Knight.

 

[Aligo]

Can custom balance be applied to rulesets or does it need to be manually set each session?

Having had more thought on the matter, a lot of the issues with both Steve and kazuya boil down to having a singular all encompassing move that warps their entire playstyle, and matchup those being minecart and ewgf. The poor design choices extend to balance within the moveset too.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Can custom balance be applied to rulesets or does it need to be manually set each session?

It doesn't work online and even if it did it shouldn't be used.

GENESIS 9 might run character before stage:

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This would be a good change for NA rulesets if they applied it universally.

 

[True Blue Warrior]

Can custom balance be applied to rulesets or does it need to be manually set each session?

Having had more thought on the matter, a lot of the issues with both Steve and kazuya boil down to having a singular all encompassing move that warps their entire playstyle, and matchup those being minecart and ewgf. The poor design choices extend to balance within the moveset too.

Minecart is not OP.

 

[Aligo]

I am pretty sure it is one of the best specials to have ever existed in smash. It is an extra jump and horizontal movement off stage, it negates Steves only weakness, speed, on stage as it requires little comnitment and offers burst movement. With gold it is a faster, stronger wonderwing. For some reason the code is bugged and it is often not destroyed when taking over 8% damage, forcing a jump or dodge, putting the over player in a bad position. It also leads to early kill confirms, so God forbid you are a slow masher. Other than costing resources, the move has no downsides. I am having a very hard time thinking of a side special better than minecart. Without the move Steve would have a much harder time both approaching and recovering.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Minecart absolutely has downsides. The hitbox when Steve is sitting in it is pathetically small and loses to most moves. 18 frames of startup isn't particularly fast and you can't jump immediately, so using minecart can be fairly risky at times. It also needs gold in order to actually be OP, and gold takes a while to mine, so most of the game it's not OP, and Steve will have a fairly limited amount of gold (one gold bar is 4 uses of powered minecart). Since he does get gold minecart I agree that it's overtuned and for the next Smash game they should probably nerf it (assuming Steve is even in it). Regular side-B is still pretty good, but you won't get too many kills with it (unless you get the command grab, which, yeah, is pretty busted).

All in all, and especially with powered (gold) minecart in mind, is Steve's side-B one of the best side-Bs in the game? Probably. Still worse than Smash 4 Bayonetta's side-B (as part of her kit, anyways, her side-B+up-B+up-air/fair kills were nasty).

 

[True Blue Warrior]

For some reason the code is bugged and it is often not destroyed when taking over 8% damage

You need 8.4% damage to destroy it. A lot of dash attacks can destroy it for one.

 

[WatwatBreton]

Banning kazuya's zero-to-death combo is one of the most absurd reactions I've seen in a while, completely arbitrary and inapplicable in practice.

The primary thing that changed about FP1 to FP2 is that they tried to make a lot the FP2 characters a little TOO faithful to their source material, and despite them add debilitating weaknesses to counterbalance their strengths, the tools and playstyle from their source material is too game-breaking to even counterbalance that.

Respectfully disagree. While there may be correlations between "trying to make character true to source" and power level (could argue that this is what happened to s4 bayo to an extent, getting that kind of character to work in smash without being dumb was definitely tricky), in the end I feel like FP2 strength comes from the fact that... they're very good characters. Frame data and hitboxes are overall extremely generous compared to the rest of the cast (minmin usmash doing 5 different things, seph up b, pretty much every pythra normal, steve usmash, MINECART, ANVIL, heck even sora dsmash feels silly), and while they definitely tried to give these characters some flaws it is pretty clear that they wanted the power level to go up compared to fighter pass 1.

I don't believe there is anything particularly special about minecraft or tekken that makes them impossible to adapt in a smash context without having power level issues, just like how megaman is balanced and faithful or bayo is now balanced and fairly faithful. But if tomorrow I decide to take my magic DLC hitbox brush and make all of megaman's normals as generous as pythra's (what are those hurtbox shifts seriously) well he's probably gonna be pretty hecked up lol.

Kazuya and Steve were definitely design challenges though (sakurai's direct were pretty insightful on the implementation process) and it tooks them like a year to get figured out and start performing, so at least there's that excuse. Pythra though idk gotta sell those DLCs by just making ur character absurd on everything except recovery I guess.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Respectfully disagree. While there may be correlations between "trying to make character true to source" and power level (could argue that this is what happened to s4 bayo to an extent, getting that kind of character to work in smash without being dumb was definitely tricky), in the end I feel like FP2 strength comes from the fact that... they're very good characters. Frame data and hitboxes are overall extremely generous compared to the rest of the cast (minmin usmash doing 5 different things, seph up b, pretty much every pythra normal, steve usmash, MINECART, ANVIL, heck even sora dsmash feels silly), and while they definitely tried to give these characters some flaws it is pretty clear that they wanted the power level to go up compared to fighter pass 1.

I don't believe there is anything particularly special about minecraft or tekken that makes them impossible to adapt in a smash context without having power level issues, just like how megaman is balanced and faithful or bayo is now balanced and fairly faithful. But if tomorrow I decide to take my magic DLC hitbox brush and make all of megaman's normals as generous as pythra's (what are those hurtbox shifts seriously) well he's probably gonna be pretty hecked up lol.

Kazuya and Steve were definitely design challenges though (sakurai's direct were pretty insightful on the implementation process) and it tooks them like a year to get figured out and start performing, so at least there's that excuse. Pythra though idk gotta sell those DLCs by just making ur character absurd on everything except recovery I guess.

Well when I said most, I was pretty much referring to just Min Min, Steve, and Kazuya (which in retrospect is half so not most). I explained more in-depth about it in my post for each of those three characters. While the three does have silly stuff outside of their series specific stuff, stuff like Min Min's half-stage ranged normals and the entire existence of blocks are very tough to implement into Smash without it being game-breaking (or in the case for Min Min's normals, completely debilitating for deal with for a lot of the cast).

To the devs credit, I feel that Hero and Sephiroth are successful "faithful but nothing too game-breaking and properly balanced" characters. Hero's powerful spells, buffs, and MP system is balanced with sluggish normals and RNG. Sephiroth's unprecedented sword range and powerful One-Winged mechanic (giving him some of the power and 'boss-character' status from his home games) is balanced behind sketchy frame data and being extremely light (especially for his size).

 

[Aligo]

You need 8.4% damage to destroy it. A lot of dash attacks can destroy it for one.

During the first second or two of activation, the minecart is unable to be destroyed, going to 0.1% health instead, which is why countering it by attacking is often unreliable.

Aegis is an interesting case as while their hitboxes are good, their frame data is below average for a swordie, especially in the air (Mythras air attacks are slower, shorter ranged and less damaging than Lucinas for instance. The knockback angles tend to be pretty bad too with many attacks hitting up and away. Pyra is notable for having the slowest out of shield options of any character and in the game at frame 13. People say their moves are far above average, but one look at the frame data tells the opposite story. Fast switching really does make the character work.

 

[st0pnsw0p]

So this is interesting. Are people really so sensitive that having one Steve and one Kazuya in top 8 every week is enough to consider a ban?

Keep in mind top 8 doesn't tell the whole story. A comment in ESAM's most recent video about the ban says that:

As a Dallas player, when you said "Idk how much the 2-2 3-2 area is riddled with Kazuya and Steve" I can confirm that the biggest issue is definitely the Kazuya/Steve players that usually place around 9th/13th that are far more representative numbers wise. We have like 7 Kazuya's and 4-5 Steve's they just don't tend to top 8 the same events.

As it turns out when your entire region is Kazuya and Steve, then the region tends to be good at gatekeeping all but the best of them from placing really highly, but they still randomly upset people at least once an event and when it happens every local multiple high level players have started quitting

I've also heard many others, including Dallas Kazuya player hippo, say the region has a high concentration of Steve and Kazuya (and ROB) players, and this comment falls in line with those others, so I see no reason to doubt it.

 

[Rizen]

During the first second or two of activation, the minecart is unable to be destroyed, going to 0.1% health instead, which is why countering it by attacking is often unreliable.

Aegis is an interesting case as while their hitboxes are good, their frame data is below average for a swordie, especially in the air (Mythras air attacks are slower, shorter ranged and less damaging than Lucinas for instance. The knockback angles tend to be pretty bad too with many attacks hitting up and away. Pyra is notable for having the slowest out of shield options of any character and in the game at frame 13. People say their moves are far above average, but one look at the frame data tells the opposite story. Fast switching really does make the character work.

I promised myself I wouldn't talk about Aegis but this is just wrong. Mythra has a frame 2 jab and Pyra's is f3. Mythra's jab is literally the same frame as Fox's. Her frame data's crazy. She has a f5 Dtilt that's a combo starter the same as Roy's jab. Mythra also has virtually no endlag on her attacks. She can Utilt>Uair>uair or any number of chains. Pyra's frame data isn't as good but it's not bad considering how big her sword is.

 

[Frihetsanka]

I've also heard many others, including Dallas Kazuya player hippo, say the region has a high concentration of Steve and Kazuya (and ROB) players, and this comment falls in line with those others, so I see no reason to doubt it.

It's certainly interesting. Don't a lot of regions in Melee quite a few Fox players? Yet they adapted. I don't really like the mentality of "this character is too strong/annoying to fight, we should ban him". Many of the YouTube comments don't even think Steve/Kazuya are gamebreakingly OP, but rather "toxic" or "annoying". The game right now is hardly centered around Steve. You'll see Steves do well from time to time, but not significantly moreso than other characters, and Steves take up, what, 4% of a bracket? So 96% are non-Steve? Banning Steve at this point in time would be a mistake. In order for him to be banned, things would have to get significantly worse first, or someone has to discover some gamebreaking tech that forces a ban (assuming the tech itself can't be just be banned). I think it's unlikely, and neither Steve nor Kazuya will end up being banned.

Viewership is not a good argument. Imagine telling a Steve or Kazuya player "Sorry, you can't play your favorite character, many Twitch viewers don't like watching him". Yeah, not a good look. Besides, what about the people that do enjoy watching these characters? People like to complain, it's nothing new, but we shouldn't cater the ruleset around Twitch chat.

 

[Arthur97]

To be fair, Melee had a much smaller roster and even smaller viable roster as it is. If you want fighter diversity, don't play Melee.

 

[The_Bookworm]

OrionStats updated today.

OrionStats - Smash Ultimate 2022 TTS (Updated December 23rd, 2022)

docs.google.com

Not too much changed. Palutena regained #3 over Aegis, Inkling just barely achieved top 30 thanks to a regional resurgence, and a few characters like Sephiroth, Bayonetta, and Pikachu dipped down a bit.

Not sure if this was in the previous rankings, but a few of the low/bottom tiered characters has gotten some good points lately. Big D's efforts (plus the multitude of IC players in Japanese regionals) got ICs at 44th, DK is at 52nd (highest he has been post-quarantine) and above characters like Puff and Incineroar, Mii Brawler and Dr. Mario both achieved top 60, and Little Mac climbed his way out of bottom 10. I know that Brawler isn't seen as low tier, but they are historically pretty low in result rankings, and considering how miserably low the other two Miis are...

A few other observations:

• For most of the season, Isabelle has been higher in terms of results than Villager despite the latter being considered the better character. However, it seems that Villager has once again exceeded Isabelle in terms of result numbers, although Isabelle still being above the bottom 15 is very impressive.
• Wii Fit Trainer seems to have unfortunately kinda dropped the ball (no pun intended) this season, as being 70th (therefore bottom 15) seems to be an all time low for the character. I don't really see much Wii Fit at high level anymore, so this doesn't really surprise me, but it is kinda drastic how much the character kinda disappeared.
• Conversely, I am actually surprised that Link is holding up at 55th. Without T, Link's high level representation in major events is close to non-existent. I guess he is bolstered by good representation at Japanese and European regional events, but I generally don't see the character much at all anymore, even in comparison to Toon Link who still has Sigma get good results in Japanese majors.
• Poor Mii Swordfighter. The character has always have very low result numbers, but being last with only 9 points is pretty abysmal, especially in a meta where some other low/bottom tier characters are getting surprisingly good result numbers for their perceived tier placement. This character has virtually no high level representation and is unpopular even at lower levels of play.
• Also Marth is pretty tragic right now. First half of 2022 had Marth at an all time high in terms of results, additionally having a lot of hype revolving around Ignaize's increasing tournament success at the local and regional level, but this has unfortunately not translated to major level at all. Second half of 2022 now has Marth at an all time low as the second worst in results with only 12.5 points.

 

[Aligo]

During the first second or two of activation, the minecart is unable to be destroyed, going to 0.1% health instead, which is why countering it by attacking is often unreliable.

Aegis is an interesting case as while their hitboxes are good, their frame data is below average for a swordie (Mythras air attacks are slower, shorter ranged and less damaging than Lucinas for instance. The knockback angles tend to be pretty bad too with many attacks hitting up and away. Pyra is notable for having the slowest out of shield options of any character and in the game at frame 13. People say their moves are far above average, but one look at the frame data tells the opposite story.

I promised myself I wouldn't talk about Aegis but this is just wrong. Mythra has a frame 2 jab and Pyra's is f3. Mythra's jab is literally the same frame as Fox's. Her frame data's crazy. She has a f5 Dtilt that's a combo starter the same as Roy's jab. Mythra also has virtually no endlag on her attacks. She can Utilt>Uair>uair or any number of chains. Pyra's frame data isn't as good but it's not bad considering how big her sword is.

Isn't jab their only above average move frame data wise? Dtilt is pretty good but it isn't a free 60% damage like Steve utilt or a kill confirm below 100% like some other swordies. It doesn't even gimp recoveries at ledge.

 

[Diddy Kong]

OrionStats updated today.

OrionStats - Smash Ultimate 2022 TTS (Updated December 23rd, 2022)

docs.google.com

Not too much changed. Palutena regained #3 over Aegis, Inkling just barely achieved top 30 thanks to a regional resurgence, and a few characters like Sephiroth, Bayonetta, and Pikachu dipped down a bit.

Not sure if this was in the previous rankings, but a few of the low/bottom tiered characters has gotten some good points lately. Big D's efforts (plus the multitude of IC players in Japanese regionals) got ICs at 44th, DK is at 52nd (highest he has been post-quarantine) and above characters like Puff and Incineroar, Mii Brawler and Dr. Mario both achieved top 60, and Little Mac climbed his way out of bottom 10. I know that Brawler isn't seen as low tier, but they are historically pretty low in result rankings, and considering how miserably low the other two Miis are...

A few other observations:

• For most of the season, Isabelle has been higher in terms of results than Villager despite the latter being considered the better character. However, it seems that Villager has once again exceeded Isabelle in terms of result numbers, although Isabelle still being above the bottom 15 is very impressive.
• Wii Fit Trainer seems to have unfortunately kinda dropped the ball (no pun intended) this season, as being 70th (therefore bottom 15) seems to be an all time low for the character. I don't really see much Wii Fit at high level anymore, so this doesn't really surprise me, but it is kinda drastic how much the character kinda disappeared.
• Conversely, I am actually surprised that Link is holding up at 55th. Without T, Link's high level representation in major events is close to non-existent. I guess he is bolstered by good representation at Japanese and European regional events, but I generally don't see the character much at all anymore, even in comparison to Toon Link who still has Sigma get good results in Japanese majors.
• Poor Mii Swordfighter. The character has always have very low result numbers, but being last with only 9 points is pretty abysmal, especially in a meta where some other low/bottom tier characters are getting surprisingly good result numbers for their perceived tier placement. This character has virtually no high level representation and is unpopular even at lower levels of play.
• Also Marth is pretty tragic right now. First half of 2022 had Marth at an all time high in terms of results, additionally having a lot of hype revolving around Ignaize's increasing tournament success at the local and regional level, but this has unfortunately not translated to major level at all. Second half of 2022 now has Marth at an all time low as the second worst in results with only 12.5 points.

Most characters aren't surprising, but from the top 15 or so, the characters least talked about imo are Diddy, Samus and Wolf

 

[True Blue Warrior]

During the first second or two of activation, the minecart is unable to be destroyed,

Actually, the invincibility period is only 17 frames and the hitbox is active on frame 18 so this isn’t really true.

Aegis is an interesting case as while their hitboxes are good, their frame data is below average for a swordie,

Mythra’s frame data is pretty good.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

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So this is interesting. Are people really so sensitive that having one Steve and one Kazuya in top 8 every week is enough to consider a ban? They don't even place top 3 consistently. I think the ban talk and overall negativity is doing more damage than the characters are. Smash has always had some design issues with characters, and while patch culture means complaining about characters sometimes works and gets that character nerfed, once patches have stopped coming it's mostly hurts the scene. Occasionally you'd hear Melee players talking about banning Jigglypuff but that was a very small minority (although I think the Steve/Kazuya ban talk is also a small minority, I haven't heard a single person in my country say they want those characters banned, other than as a joke).

Oh, and Melee players had to deal with Fox for quite some time, yet they didn't try to get him banned, they just dealt with it. Even Smash Bayonetta, as broken as she was, only made up for, what, 10-15% of the playerbase? And Steve is significantly less than that, even Steve + Kazuya (and Kazuya isn't even commonly considered #2) are probably less than Bayonetta, and those three together are probably used less than Brawl Meta Knight.

Based on what I've heard from people who live in Dallas locals (such as in the comments of ESAM's recent video on how he's against the Steve ban), the problem isn't the amount of Steve's/Kazuya's in top 8 but the amount of Steve's and Kazuya's in top 16/top 12 that gatekeep a number of different players there, and that's why there's been so many complaints.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Based on what I've heard from people who live in Dallas locals (such as in the comments of ESAM's recent video on how he's against the Steve ban), the problem isn't the amount of Steve's/Kazuya's in top 8 but the amount of Steve's and Kazuya's in top 16/top 12 that gatekeep a number of different players there, and that's why there's been so many complaints.

I do wonder how many people complaining are:
#1. Playing a top tier.
#2. Have spent 10-20 hours or more on learning the matchup.

Both takes might seem controversial, but I think it's good to have a solid foundation before complaining. Instead of trying to get a character banned, try to see what you yourself can do to improve the situation for yourself and overcome the obstacle.

So, for #1. If you play a low tier or a bottom tier, then yeah, it's expected that some matchups are going to be rough. Top players generally speaking play top tier characters or at least high tier character, since those characters are generally strong enough to compete at a higher level. People are free to choose to play low tiers or mid tiers if they want to, but some matchups are going to be really difficult. High tiers are in a middle ground in a while, but generally speaking they're worse than top tiers and you might have to expect a few really rough matchups as a high tier main. Take Corrin for example, hypothetically if I mained Corrin in this game I might struggle versus Min Min, but that's not Min Min's players fault, that's on me for picking Corrin. I could choose to work really hard to deal with the matchup, or I could pick a different character (either as a main or a secondary to help Corrin for her difficult matchups).

As for #2, generally speaking, learning a matchup takes time. 10-20 hours isn't enough to fully learn a matchup, but it should give you some ideas of what to do in it. I suspect many people have less than 10 hours of fighting Steve and/or Kazuya yet still complain about them.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Talking about complaining about Kazuya. I think the hate is getting overboard, and this is coming from someone who doesn't enjoy playing against the character.

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Like WTF is this YouTube video? It's honestly gross.

 

[blackghost]

Keep in mind top 8 doesn't tell the whole story. A comment in ESAM's most recent video about the ban says that:



I've also heard many others, including Dallas Kazuya player hippo, say the region has a high concentration of Steve and Kazuya (and ROB) players, and this comment falls in line with those others, so I see no reason to doubt it.

Then objectively they should be better at fighting those characters. Also they all can't be high level players. If this region is truly that heavily concentrated with those characters you should have plenty of knowledge on the matchup.

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Like WTF is this YouTube video? It's honestly gross.

[/QUOTE]



Read the comments it's people calling Riddles carried ( when he has invented a solid piece of Kazuya meta)



People are more scared of Kazuya cd than they should be as well people seem to think its some invincible approach.



Whenever smash introduces complex characters it's seems a quarter of the playerbase is just so lazy they don't want to even have to learn how they work so they just whine.

 

[blackghost]

Talking about complaining about Kazuya. I think the hate is getting overboard, and this is coming from someone who doesn't enjoy playing against the character.

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Like WTF is this YouTube video? It's honestly gross.

Read the comments it's people calling Riddles carried ( when he has invented a solid political of Kazuya meta)

People are more scared of Kazuya cd than they should be as well people seem to think its some invincible approach.

Whenever smash introduces complex characters it's seems a quarter of the playerbase is just so lazy they don't want to even have to learn how they work so they just whine.

 

[Aligo]

Read the comments it's people calling Riddles carried ( when he has invented a solid political of Kazuya meta)

People are more scared of Kazuya cd than they should be as well people seem to think its some invincible approach.

Whenever smash introduces complex characters it's seems a quarter of the playerbase is just so lazy they don't want to even have to learn how they work so they just whine.

To be fair I have won against player better than me with kazuya without knowing any of the inputs. Even unga bunga works pretty well in my experience thanks to the ability to kill like 5 hits. Still, the point stands. While kazuya is overloaded in damage and gimmick terms, he still has weakness most of the cast can exploit, as well as highly unfavorable matchups. He is also stressful in long bracket runs, which kinda limits his presence high up in majors. It's not like Rob where you can play with your eyes closed and still win.

 

[Frihetsanka]

The second week of Shockwave is done. The first week, with all DLC banned, had 91 entrants. The second week, with Steve banned, had 67 entrants. Seems like the novelty is wearing off a bit, long term I don't think banning Steve would really help with entrants all that much. Not that I'd think it'd be a very good reason to ban a character to begin with, but it seems that banning a character won't significantly increase the amount of entrants.

 

[Aligo]

The second week of Shockwave is done. The first week, with all DLC banned, had 91 entrants. The second week, with Steve banned, had 67 entrants. Seems like the novelty is wearing off a bit, long term I don't think banning Steve would really help with entrants all that much. Not that I'd think it'd be a very good reason to ban a character to begin with, but it seems that banning a character won't significantly increase the amount of entrants.

I don't think two weeks is a good metric for measurement, it probably needs more time to determine.

Also I don't think the problem with Steve and kazuya comp wise is their playstyle (both are poorly designed but I don't think this is the true reason behind the hatred), it is their massively inflated damage values. This both means they need less neutral interactions to win, and it also gives them more shield safety than other characters with both having plus on shield attacks. It was why I asked about the custom balance.

 

[Sucumbio]

I don't even think a month tells us anything useful.

 

[Rocketjay8]

If Chrom had a better recovery, would he be the best character in the game?

No there's more problems with chrom as a character unfortunatly as a solo main.

Still a really good secondary/pocket.

 

[Frihetsanka]

I don't even think a month tells us anything useful.

I think it does, since if the argument is "People stopped attending because of Steve" and Steve gets banned as a test and they're very public about this and it gets a lot of attention, and it still only gets like 17 more players? And some of them might be there to check it out? I think that's an indication that a Steve ban wouldn't significantly increase the number of players.

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One of the best Dragon Ball Z players, apparently, and I hear he's playing Kazuya? Very interesting. I wonder if Kazuya could help us get more fans of traditional fighting games to try Smash Ultimate?

 

[Aligo]

No there's more problems with chrom as a character unfortunatly as a solo main.

Still a really good secondary/pocket.

I think it does, since if the argument is "People stopped attending because of Steve" and Steve gets banned as a test and they're very public about this and it gets a lot of attention, and it still only gets like 17 more players? And some of them might be there to check it out? I think that's an indication that a Steve ban wouldn't significantly increase the number of players.

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One of the best Dragon Ball Z players, apparently, and I hear he's playing Kazuya? Very interesting. I wonder if Kazuya could help us get more fans of traditional fighting games to try Smash Ultimate?

I think that most of the fg fans would go more towards either Terry or Ken to be honest, as both have a more flexible playstyle. Doubly so for Ken as he does not require DLC. You would probably want to be experienced with other fg characters first before going to Kaz, he is rather niche and needs a secondary unless your name is Riddles.

Also I think that smash would get more fg players if they added a character that wasn't a 'very burly man with a projectile neutral special and burst side special'. It is far less diverse than it could be right now.

 

[Sucumbio]

... It is far less diverse than it could be right now.

Could be right now? No. Ultimate has the flagship character of each fg. Ken got in as a "ditto" bc reasons.

Will be in the next game, who knows.

 

[Aligo]

Could be right now? No. Ultimate has the flagship character of each fg. Ken got in as a "ditto" bc reasons.

Will be in the next game, who knows.

It does make sense representation wise. Still find it strange just how similar they all are, despite wacky characters being a staple of fgs. I really think it contributes to fg hate in the smash community, as it paints such games in a dimmer light, and perhaps reminds people subconsciously of fire emblem, as strange as it sounds.

 

[Sucumbio]

It does make sense representation wise. Still find it strange just how similar they all are, despite wacky characters being a staple of fgs. I really think it contributes to fg hate in the smash community, as it paints such games in a dimmer light, and perhaps reminds people subconsciously of fire emblem, as strange as it sounds.

Well, more so that fg "story lines" typically endorse the trope you mentioned... Some fg series do a good job not flatly saying This Guy is the Main Character cause that does hurt sales if he's a ****ty character lol then other good fg do have a strict protagonist and storyline that's "but official" or whatever, then there's some with a good balance like Tekken, Mortal Kombat, Killer Instinct, etc.

Edit

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ESAM latest move tier list... The up tilt.

 

[Frihetsanka]

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Some notable placements: Fox #9, Pokémon Trainer #10, Sheik #23, Olimar #25. Falco at #33 is also fairly notable.

 

[Arthur97]

Still not sure that Joker isn't overvalued.

 

[Aligo]

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Some notable placements: Fox #9, Pokémon Trainer #10, Sheik #23, Olimar #25. Falco at #33 is also fairly notable.

I wonder how much further shulk will fall off in peoples preceptions. For the 'endless potential' character it seems that potential has never really been realized.

Also I have no idea how Esam rated Pyras uptilt as top. It has good range and hurtbox shifting, but it is very slow and pretty weak, meaning its combo kill potential are quite low.

 

[Frihetsanka]

I wonder how much further shulk will fall off in peoples preceptions. For the 'endless potential' character it seems that potential has never really been realized.

Ramses thinks Shulk is #1, right now Shulk is #28 though. MkLeo Shulk would've been interesting. I think Shulk has enough flaws to make him not top 10 but I can see where people are coming from.

Also I have no idea how Esam rated Pyras uptilt as top. It has good range and hurtbox shifting, but it is very slow and pretty weak, meaning its combo kill potential are quite low.

Pyra's up-tilt is a great kill move. It covers a huge area, is disjointed, shifts her hurtbox, and kills fairly early.

 

[Aligo]

Ramses thinks Shulk is #1, right now Shulk is #28 though. MkLeo Shulk would've been interesting. I think Shulk has enough flaws to make him not top 10 but I can see where people are coming from

What are those flaws might I ask? I don't really know enough about shulk other than the fact I seen to default to just a select few moves when I play him, and that his jab sucks.